The pregnant Los Angeles woman who was brutally hogtied by California Highway Patrolmen in August 2011 after being pulled over for chatting on her cell phone while driving has finally received retribution in the form of a $250,000 settlement.

According to the LA Times, Tamara Gaglione, 30, was hauled away and charged with misdemeanor evading and resisting arrest and driving on a suspended license.

Those charges were dropped, however, once Gaglione's terrible treatment was revealed in footage from the cruiser's video camera.

It is unclear in the grainy video exactly how aggressive, if at all, Gaglione was toward the cops. What is clear, though, is that Hernandez and Martinez drew their weapons on the unarmed Gaglione as they approached her and forced her onto the ground.

Hernandez later claimed Gaglione did not tell them of her pregnancy until after she was on the ground, but Gaglione said she told the officers as they approached her.

Hogtied, Gaglione was subsequently taken away in a patrol car.

Gaglione filed suit against the department and the officers involved, but the video evidence that eventually won Gaglione $250,000 this past November was not immediately forthcoming. Gaglione's attorney Howard Price claimed that Hernandez failed to check a box on the arrest report stating a video camera had, in fact, recorded the incident.

I would gladly have waived the $250,000 if the judge could make certain that every low-life scum-sucking PIG involved in that stop was never again able to serve in any law enFORCEment capacity anywhere.

10
posted on 01/18/2013 3:35:58 PM PST
by spodefly
(This is my tag line. There are many like it, but this one is mine.)

If you’re “not saying that was the case here”, why did you bother passing on the Thin Blue Line comment?
It OBVIOUSLY wasn’t the case here, yet your first instinctive
reaction is to drag in a totally irrelevant incident from your own experience.

In fairness, what didnt she understand about the warnings from the police? Was she drunk? Didnt speak English? On drugs? Talking on a cellphone with a suspended license. Not sympathetic to her plight.

You should be sypathetic. She did not understand them. That is clear by her body language.

I misunderstood a cops instructions once. It was completely innocent. I was driving someone to the hospital who had chest pains and got pulled over enroute.

I explained to the officer that I needed to get to the hospital and asked if it was okay if I continued. I thought the cop said okay and so I left.

The officer followed and when I got to the hospital and tried to go to get medical help she pulled her gun on me.

I told her will all due respect officer I'm going to tend to my friend and I turned and walked away from the officer. When I came out of the ER entrance to move my car the officer was really pissed.

13
posted on 01/18/2013 3:42:44 PM PST
by gunsequalfreedom
(Conservative is not a label of convenience. It is a guide to your actions.)

The department I worked for arrested and fired the Chief of Police for DWI.

What was it you were saying again?

My husbands best friend is a cop. He wrecked his new Mustang driving over 100 mph after visiting friends and drinking a few beers. I don't know if he drank enough to be impaired but he told my husband he had been drinking and showing off to a friend while driving the friend home.

His "punishment" was a few days of paid sick leave and several months of light duty when he returned to work.

Doing so under color of authority should be an aggravating, not a mitigating factor.

The mitigating factor is that she was arrestable for an offense, at least in Texas (driving with a suspended license.) Once an actor is under arrest, there are grey areas of conduct by the officer, depending on all factors perceived by an officer. I'm not saying that this wasn't a serious abuse of authority, but even as a civilian, this wouldn't have been a felony offense. Let's not make it worse than it appeared; it was indeed alarming and humiliating, but the woman wasn't harmed.

38
posted on 01/18/2013 5:06:46 PM PST
by fwdude
( You cannot compromise with that which you must defeat.)

The ‘driving with a suspended license’ chrage, later dismissed perhaps because of a clerical error?, was discovered after the assault! There is no excuse these cop thugs should not have been fired and brought up on criminal charges!

That would be an excellent idea. Take settlement money from the cop's retirement fund and leave balances, if need be. They all have hundreds of thousands wasting away there, and anyway it's all taxpayer dollars to begin with.

The Cleveland Police Department has had about 30 shootings of unarmed people in the last decade. Every single one was ruled justified, even the unarmed teen hiding in his closet. What was that you were saying about professional courtesy?

No. I have frienda who are cops. They are great guys I’d trust with my life. But they also would never justify brutish behavior by saying “act like a criminal get treated like a criminal.” They would let the courts decide first, who is a criminal, and second, how they should be treated.

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